Category Archives: Practical Mysticism

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Breathe with your Mind—Now (12/15)

“Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.”
Fable?

MEDITATE SYMBOL TRIsmallforblog

We’ve discussed the “Radical” part of “Radical Faith” (i.e. no matter what). But lurking is the “Faith” half of that slogan. What about that?

The concept of faith is taken to be nebulous, invisible, impractical. Faith is just faith, it has no logical or philosophical weight. In itself it is no argument and therefore, most damningly, not “scientific.” Yet for the faith-full it carries enormous weight.

Only it’s usually in something outside oneself.

I mean to stand up faith as solid and practical and useful. As real as touching your finger to your nose. As real as a skyscraper. And not based on a phantom. (Okay, well, I’m also going to argue we are all phantoms…) But after the Core Material is published the focus of this blog will be on how “scientific” faith can be. How “Real” it is. Theory isn’t anything but abstraction unless it can be applied, so the rest of the blog will be devoted to Applied Spirituality/Philosophy.

So let’s get past the theory stage as fast as possible. There are just a few bricks remaining for this path.

Let”s go back to earlier on the path, when I was talking of God/AllThatIs, and we can bring in Quantum Physics here:

I averred that there are no clearly defined boundaries, to any thing, any body. I like to say that where we begin and end is more story, more cloud, than fact. Our bodies are an outline and they don’t contain us. Even within skin it’s hard to know where we end and the world begins.

Let’s take a side path for a moment:

Essentially, we live in a consciousness of our own description/definition. We live together in our “outside” world, on this beautiful planet, by agreement. We abide by certain taken-for-granted rules like specific spectrums of light and sound. We adhere, for the most part, to gravity and the surface of the planet, moving our bone and flesh structure around according to physical “laws.” We play with other bodies—persons and objects according to those laws and others that govern the playground.

Make no mistake, these are laws/rules/limits particular to this specific reality. In a big way, we came here because of them. We chose to play by these limits to learn from them, to test our self with them and against them. But we also knew coming in that we would not be wholly subject to them. Do you remember?

For at the same time that we move and play according to the laws of physics and biology, we have an “inner” existence that is not merely subject to the limitations of the brain, our sensual apparatus, and our physical perceptions. Because we don’t originate here, and we move on to other playgrounds after this one.

The only limits to the self who is playing here are what I_You_We allow. At a certain point in our growth as a human we should find that we have choice over what we think and feel, and over what others tell us. What limits us are only the filters of our personally held beliefs and expectations, and those we hold as a group.

I_You_We take for granted many of our thoughts, feelings, beliefs and expectations, and behave automatically from those habits. We make choices and take actions all based on many presuppositions. But we don’t have to follow the program(ming). And I am hoping we stop following some seriously limiting thoughts and beliefs once we know more about the ideas contained in the Core Material.

So back to the main path now:

We agree on (most of) the rules of the physical playground–where the trees are placed, how many miles it is from Point A to Point B. But not only are there gray areas, not dependent on gray matter, to this particular camouflage physical reality, there are wholly non-physical realities inside, outside, and betwixt and between this seemingly solid one. Dark matter, or light matter perhaps.

The next brick is: In truth, in whatever reality/form we find our self, we are more invisible, not physical, not form, than what we hold to be our current form/shape/body. Most of Me_You_Us is invisible, unperceivable—at whatever level and with whatever senses we are using at the time. We can begin to know that “more” of us, for in fact we are never without “it” or separated from “it.” But we usually identify with the visible part—of our self and others. But again, the “bigger” invisible Self is knowable and in constant contact with us as ego/form.

Non-physical reality exists, and is really where we spend most of our “time” anyway. We just haven’t been aware of it in the common mindset. Every night, however, we go to one, or several, of our non-physical realities. For hours, interrupted or un-, we leave our bodies every night, leave them breathing on their own, refreshing on their own, snuggled all alone, while we go home. Why? For play, but often for advice.

Dream reality is a reality. And I_You_We really go there. Sleep is like the halftime of a game, or, even better, a play’s intermission every night. (A commercial perhaps?) Anyway, we go there–somewhere–to consult with the coach or writer/director, about how the game, how the play is shaping up. While there we look at the previous plays, to go over what worked or didn’t. We test possibilities for the next act, acting out different scenarios. And then, before it’s time to awaken/return to the body, we choose a line to pursue, the next play. This is all done without our physical bodies, in another reality than this one, in our dream bodies. A reality with much different, and far fewer rules.

That dream reality is physical too. It is a real land, or cloud, or stream, and we row, row, row there, just like we row, row, row here.

And what is going on while we are rowing here, on this stream, in this real reality? Well, we are rarely fully engaged in the process. We spend most of our physical reality in our imagination, day dreaming, not even tuned to this channel. You may not be aware of much else than these words right now. However, on Earth our body and our environment is the channel, the wavelength we agreed to keep. Our mind drifts constantly in and out of touch with it. Past, future, maybes, really old memories, new fantasies, back and forth and hardly present. But there is only one reality.

Now.

And it is much more than synapses firing.

For the next sixty seconds leave this blog. Use all of your senses to take notice of where you are, what you are feeling, in your body and your emotions, come back from the mental gyrations my words have set spinning, and after you take notice of what you are seeing around you, hearing around you, feeling with your skin and bones and muscles, smelling and tasting with your face, take about a minute to just watch your breaths. You can close your eyes and simply inhale consciously and exhale consciously. Then you may come back here.

Go.

Now.

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That was nice, right? Do it often. Get focused in your present as often as you can. So you have a solid footing on where you really are, in your direct circumstances, and that will help you know who you really are.

I_You_We mostly live in an indirect reality–one of news, opinion, imagination. It’s not My_Your_Our direct reality, any more than these “words” have an existence in themselves. I_You_We apply all the meaning to the words and things and events in our life. But that is because we are essentially not physical. The essence of My_You_Us, our Being, our Soul, is simply not physical. And solid as it seems, neither is the chair you sit on (and then again it is…). Yet our Being, our Soul, our life is real…

Here’s the thing, the big spoiler, and how we can make science really know faith: the physical is made from the non-physical, and not the other way around. Matter didn’t make consciousness, “matter” came from consciousness. And really, matter IS consciousness. The brain doesn’t make consciousness either, it interprets it, it filters it, it dumbs it down for use in a limited medium. The brain is not our higher power. It’s a tuner. To mistake it for the creator of reality is like calling your cable box God. Oh wait, it is for some… 🙂

And while we are at it: there simply is no outside and there is no “physical.” Only the appearance, and rock hard feeling of our maya. By our agreement. To be hypnotized.

This moment “in time” is a wavelength, and all the other wavelengths, all the other selves, all the other stories are going on right now. Invisible. In their “times.” We have tools available to us to change channels. We just forgot how to use them, or never were taught.

On Earth, our BodyMind is a marriage of the involuntary—like our heart beating, or our intestines digesting—and the voluntary—our thoughts, our feelings, our beliefs and expectations, our actions. (Some may think our feelings are involuntary, they rush up upon us unbidden. Emotions are both side effects and also malleable—or ignorable which isn’t healthy.)

The involuntary is taken care of for us, we do set it in motion, we do set up blockages, we do make things easier or harder, but it runs on its own. That’s the beauty of Nature. The voluntary is us acting, in Nature. Acting out our story/stories. Acting on impulses. Acting scared. Acting big. Or small.

We have more control of bodily processes than we think, and our body is more aware of itself than we know, but there is one perfect meeting place for the involuntary and the voluntary and that’s in our breathing. And it is another example of the beautiful, glorious design and engineering of this natural physical world. Visible meets invisible, physical meets Mind when we simply breathe consciously. And all of a sudden we are in the Now.

The Spacious Present.

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Take a few more conscious breaths.

As for Faith? Our trust in the invisible, the supposedly unknowable, pure Mystery?

When we know how things work—not superstitiously, in fact—faith becomes an act of letting the involuntary and voluntary have their joy, together. An act of consciously participating in it, in creation of physical reality. Of knowing our choices make manifest My_Your_Our world/worlds/realities/stories.

Science is its own faith. This entire blog tries to point to where science (human understanding) will go when it recognizes our daily and nightly non-physical aspect, where it will go when that variable is factored into its equations—especially in the softer realms, like psychology.

Or, not waiting for the scientific arts to catch up, where I_You_We will go when we incorporate it into our daily philosophy.

Next Post:

No Limits

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Tetrahedron Facet 4: God/Limitless Self – I Am We Part2 or God=AllThatIs=We (=Love) (9/15)

Okay, no small subject here. The God concept has been expressed and understood at a way too shallow level. Man making God in man’s image.

One way to think of this is to try and define your own personal boundaries. You would say it is your skin perhaps but your senses reach way out beyond those limitations. As does your mind. And your heart goes out, and in.

If you are sitting, say, the only way you know where you end and the rest of the world starts is by the pressure of weight and gravity on your butt and legs and maybe the soles of your feet.

You feel your shape by your clothes touching your skin, but how about your head? If you aren’t wearing a hat and especially if you have no hair, and if the air isn’t particularly hot or cold, you don’t really feel a boundary line. Maybe pressure, or heat, from reading my words, 🙂 but no real sense of shape. Same for your face. (Without a mirror you could only know what you look like from astral projection.)

Same with your hands, you feel their weight and the separate fingers and thumbs, but not their actual shape or appearance. Most of the time we identify our body as a perceived shape, the feel of mass as against gravity through a structure like a chair or through sweat and hair and air temperature/pressure we “define” our boundaries. But for the most part we exist far beyond or “inside” that structure.

And while reside inside that perceived shape, most of our mind experience is completely non-local. It takes work to bring us fully into the present with our bodies and our direct senses. The rest of the time we drift far afield, into plans, into memories, into stories, etc. And our emotions follow and lead, rise and fall like waves drifting onto our shores, or clouds scudding the sky.

The big illusion we have is the separation of ourself from our environment, just because of the idea of skin really. There is an illusion/delusion dualism of an outside, again because we operate from the learned perspective of our senses “trapped” in a shell, this specific physical form.

However, our biggest definer of our boundaries is simply the concept of “me.” That is our real shape, and where our limits begin, and where we see a contrast between the “outside” and some notion of our individual self.

Yet even the personal physical me is a we—me and my body. As you are you and yours.

Each of our bodies is made of a host, a personal biological community of living breathing cells, and bacteria, viruses and systems and organs (not to mention the conglomerated atoms and molecules). Working mostly beneath our conscious awareness, this organization serving “me” carries out vitally important tasks, and not completely blindly—with purpose or perhaps a consciousness of its own. Let’s leave that for now.

But it seems our body is not only indefinable in its exact shape, but it is indefinable in how much of me is really an unconscious-to-me we. This is the first, but not the last, concept we accept but have a hard time grasping in all its brilliantly coordinated, cooperative complexity.

So forget the individual body, and that me/we for a second and go with this one. What does just a general “We” mean?

All of us right? The us in this moment.

What is the body of a We? Just all of our bodies? I don’t think so.

Gathered in a room it’s easy to see a we. But we mostly live in a non-local world. Take for example this experience as you read this right now. Our we as a blog community is almost purely non-physical. It’s mind and emotion and ideas but going on in different times and different places without us physically perceiving the others in this “community.” (In some online forums, there might be a green light by your name to indicate you are here, but here where?)

Of course, this is a bodily experience for each of us locally. I physically pushed buttons to make letters on lightscreen “paper.” You use your eyes and brain to decipher these symbols. These symbols attempt to represent and impart “meaning” which totally depends on how you perceive and conceive to your self these shapes you receive from me.

But I know I am part of this we, of you and us. But where is my me, and yours in this we? Not in space or time, really.

So let’s put this together. Each of us appears to be a unique, but hard to define “me” form. We do show a me to ourselves and to others. But each of us, at minimum physically, is made up of many, too many to count parts. And each of us, each me, whether we like it or not, sharing the air, is part of many—we. Yeah Wheeee!! Wild stuff.

So if we, and each of us in particular, are so non-local, and so much made of many, and part of many, why do we think God is just a guy sitting on a cloud in some particular distant place? God has to be way more than that.

I’ve used this before but think of a drop in an ocean, and defining that drop is really hard to do so suspend disbelief and just think of the drop as a me. Each drop/me is a part of the we of the ocean. But think of the ocean as being more than water between shores.

You will see that the me is ‘in” the we, and each me is a we, and we is part of a bigger we, at all times sharing this and other worlds.

In essence we personally as selves have no true definable limits. You could say there is the limit of the we at the end of our skin or where the ocean meets land. But we don’t begin or end with our skin, and the ocean is endless, at least to human conception. We are of an us, a “together” that each of us changes in every moment, but we goes way beyond us.

Add into this me/we mix unpredictable free will for each and every part of the we/me—which comes with consciousness—and… Oh wait, we haven’t gone there yet and I hear heads exploding. Let’s save that.

For now simply multiply the me/we idea by all of the probable selves we are, “me’s” that took different directions at various crossroads during this life. And multiply that by all of the reincarnational lives going on at this very moment. And multiply that by every being and creature and atom and molecule in this physical “camouflage” universe. And then multiply that by all of the other physical camouflage universes that exist at all times. And multiply that by all other non-physical/non-SpaceTime dimensions and… maybe, just maybe you can begin to feel the expanse of discussing even a hint of God. And then laugh when you turn around and see how shallow and flat is a character such as Zeus.

Altogether we are an even greater identity, which we haven’t even gotten into yet. But this is the essence of understanding a God that is beyond children’s storybooks, bible fables, and human agendas. A true multidimensional, multi-faceted God.

What If?… there really is no outside, that all is in and OF that much “bigger” God. And there are no limits to the personal self, the eternal me/we. What I am suggesting, and to break it down to its essence

God=All That Is

Here, beyond here. Now, beyond now (if that’s possible). Eternally and Everywhere. No separate Heaven (or Hell). No God up above looking down. No one particular God.

And to kick it up another notch, What If?… God/AllThatIs=AllBeing/EachBeing and What If?… God/AllThatIs=

Love.

(And this is not Love as an attribute but Love as essence.) So then EachBeing=Love—even without knowing it.

Awesome, but not terrifying. Just huuuuge.

(Okay, I know I took a big—unjustified to some of you—leap to Love, but that will come clearer later. It’s the only answer really and I will back up and explain in a post to come soon.)

And for a later date then, but I’d be remiss to not mention this. If God=AllThatIs, that includes Nature. We’ve known it all along by its name. Nature means essence. We are in Nature, obviously. In no way are we separate from Nature, being in bodies breathing air that circulates in our veins. And Nature and that relationship is an obvious metaphor for our relationship to this new, bigger, better God/We. We are, never were, and never will be separate from our source/nature/destination. Or love. (And Nature=Love too!)

We can’t physically exist in Nature and at the same time be separate, and the same goes for our “soul.”

Thanks for getting through the Tetrahedron, where all facets are different faces of the same principle, meant to coexist and not be taken as separate.

Next: No victims/No (D)evil

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Tetrahedron Facet 1: Unpredictable Free Will – Choice? Chance? Bashert? (6/15)

Choice v. Chance

You have a choice… to believe in chance. Or choice. What do you choose?

Obviously it’s a trick question because if you don’t believe in choice you don’t have a choice, right? And you can’t choose if it’s all chance.

There is the illusion of choice, you say, choosing. Or, you say the other way, It’s really all so random. Another choice (of what to believe, what to believe…).

It is gray like this every day. In some circumstances you pat yourself on the back for a job well done. At other times you shake a fist at the sky and cry Why?! (The anger betrays disbelief in Fate, or victimhood, but not total belief in one’s own hand in the current negative situation/outcome.)

We argue for and zombie walk in a haze of Choice/Chance gray. We won’t pick one or the other because both suit our purposes.

Except for science.

There is no “Creator/Designer/Architect” that can be allowed in the equation there. No UberMind, or even Watchmaker. Or God forbid, free will.

So instead “Nature” or physics, math, biology, etc. become their own creators. Immutable laws and Reason to deduce—Universe itself—were just randomly set in motion (in the context of what? and by what pool cue?).

We dissect physical reality, finding everything in order—by Chance, by Randomness, not Choice. Objects exist and can be manipulated, by minds imagining new ways, but keep the subject, or the Why? and How? questions, out of the method.

It isn’t both. It really is one or the other. Choice? Chance? You cannot have it both ways. Somebody please draw me the line between events created by pure “accident” and ones for which we are responsible. We participate in each, but one just happened…

Each person drove to the accident. How did they get there—blindly, without a direction or sense of purpose? Only to coincide at that intersection like two random, mindless, choiceless particles?

“Accidents” happen. It’s just hard to take responsibility for being there holding that plate when it inexplicably slipped out of your hand. Some things just happen. No reason, right?

Fate/Destiny/God’s Will/Bashert

But where does “it just happened” become taking credit? Only when it’s a positive experience? And to top it off, there is a third option some choose, which is to believe in Fate—or destiny, God’s Will, “meant to be.”

In many interpretations this one is No Choice, not Chance, pure Puppet. Each direction we choose is inside a maze where the end is already determined for us. No matter which way we go, we have to end up at one destination, at only one possible time.

Cheeky story that one. Appearance of free will, none at all. Diabolical. Relax, sit back, and take it—whether it’s Heaven or Hell or a Soul Mate (both?). 🙂

Choice? Chance? Fate? There is a bright side coming. Unexpected answers will be revealed.

But until then, there is no wonder we suffer so much modern depression and escapism, violence and inertia, incessant gameplay and fantasizing. Ignorance has caused a lot of pain, and continues to do so.

When we consider the standard explanations into why bad things happen we have: 1) perpetrators using their free will upon helpless victims who have/had no choice in the event. Or 2) the bad thing/person/event came from out of completely nowhere, the radically random accident. Or 3) the bad thing was sent by Destiny. All three share the same thing, no Choice—also no meaning/reason/purpose/value/responsibility.

Choice? Chance? Bashert? Some Hybrid? We slide a slippery incline when we try to blend them to explain. Ye of so little (or so picked and chosen) faith…

Maybe it’s something we haven’t considered. Something unpredictable, yet meant to be…

NEXT:

TETRAHEDRON FACET 2: No Time

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Dualism=Delusion (2/15)

“T’ai Chi (Perfect Form) arises from Wu Chi (the Formless Void) and is the mother of yin and yang
(Action/Change revealed in physical form as complementary opposites).”
Wang Tsung-yueh

Our home is not this house divided. We harbor the illusions of opposites, not even attracting. We see light and dark, count days and nights, believe waking but not dream, separate left and right, men and women… on and on.

We wholeheartedly deem self is not other, play good versus evil–and we suffer for it.

The prime illusion of this particular “camouflage” reality–Earth, with humans–is the subject-object divide in “time.” Or what appears to be cause and effect, in mind and/or matter. A host of ills are introduced–albeit for our education, in this playground/classroom/laboratory–by the subject-object/cause-effect seeming divide in time.

This divide creates tribes and teams, competition leading to hate and war. This divide creates disease and an unnatural, unnecessary separation from Nature and our bodies.

This flesh, blood, and bone-real illusion, perpetuates the ego’s one main fault: forgetting its Source. So that if left un-reminded, human individuals get to thinking they themselves God–although God without responsibility–or unmoored victims when that serves the story.

Ego is not awful in itself. In fact, ego, riding with the conscious mind, has incredible access to power and beauty, love and wisdom. Being, born of eternal action can enjoy conscious creation.

But ego’s weakness is a byproduct of this experiment in dualism. The pure power in physical being and a rainbow of desires–and fears–can use dualism to its most outrageous conclusions, to birth what we call Evil.

For many, many people (not all) opposites are separate, dividable. And that mentality also suggests that there is just as much of one as the other. A balance that unfortunately means, for instance, that there is as much evil out there as good. And, black being black, and white, white, the two can’t intermingle.

Not so the T’ai Chi symbol/concept.

In this, opposites abide. There is some of each in the other. Together, inseparable, as two sides of one coin. Sharing essence and body.

This is also simplistic, but holds great power as a concept to refute dualism.

In true physical Earth reality, look at the globe from every angle. Where is East? Where is West? Where is North? Where is South? Where is up, or down?

Yet, as long as we are physical, we will hear wavelengths beating, resonating, canceling. We will see foreground, then background, then foreground again. We will breathe in and out, let our hearts push and pull our blood, walk left and right on our ways to our destinations.

It’s in our makeup to experience so-called opposites, but not necessarily to forget how it all works together. We can clash if we are passionate, but not need to ignore the connections to each other that go beyond our skin and opinions. It is a paradox born of flesh and ego. One for us to experience fully, in many lives. When we have learned we learn:

We have the control, when we give up controlling.

Dualism=Delusion

But then we know, it’s real too.

It is a wonderfully creative lesson plan for humans. Only by believing in race or gender, boundaries or war, can they later be learned from, or disavowed. Same for pain and death. We are entranced by this illusion/delusion made so compelling that the story, the drama can enfold.

And what might seem cruel–but for some reason is embedded in our storytelling nature and this way of learning–is that only after the illusion is complete can the twist at the end–the literal end–have its full impact.

And in a flash we find we are home. Not alone. Not divided in halves. And not dead.

Next Post: No Death.

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Let’s Have Some Fun/Life=Story (1/15)

This blog is philosophical/mystical but inherently practical. (The story starts with a twist!) To repeat, the philosophical/mystical is inherently practical–it is the starting point of our narrative of course.

The full name of the blog is:

I You We My Your Our
(IYWMYO for short)

as in:

I_You_We 
Create 
My_Your_Our 
Realities/Events

Basic YCYOR as it’s know by some. But wait, there’s more…

Before we start debating YCYOR and all of the misunderstandings involved it will help to know the starting point, the center of gravity, the root assumptions of that YCYOR philosophy/practice so we can look for a common ground as we discuss these ideas. However, these root assumptions are controversial, possibly revolutionary. They will upset some and be a revelation to others.

These are not any one person’s creation. These root assumptions are foundational to Spirit/Self Being/Becoming on Earth and beyond. These aren’t physical reality root assumptions, they are root assumptions of All That Is.

On Earth we take Form, like a drop of rain running down a window. And like with that drop, form is Change–Eternal Change/Action. Slow Change, Fast Change, and it doesn’t just begin and end here on Earth.

It might seem negative to start this way but here goes. (You will see these “new” root assumptions are direct challenges to our current/”old” operating assumptions.):

1) No Dualism

2) No Death

3) No Beginning

4) No Randomness/No Chance

5) No Time

6) No Pointlessness/Competition/Stasis

7) No Boundaries/No Outside

8) No Victims/No Devil(s)

9) No Physical

10) No Limits

Lots of “No”s. Behind all of the “No”s are lots of “Yes”s. I/We think we are ready for embracing these new perspectives, as a launching pad to solving issues that have bedeviled civilization(s) throughout human history.

No and Yes, Yin and Yang, Dreaming and Awake, Character and Plot, Good and Evil. I/We will begin with No Dualism in the next installment.

I/We hope you enjoy. (And I/We suggest you look at your reactions and ask why? to your self–why you think and feel the way you are reacting, especially if you feel angry–before beginning any thread, or in responding to anything written here, by IWYMYO or anybody else.)

Again, let’s have some fun writing our life story together!

NEXT:

Dualism=Delusion